Gary Bauer did it Thursday night. Orrin Hatch did, too. George W. Bush made sure he did it once.

But it was John McCain who made it real.

In a debate notable for its in-depth examinations of Social Security policy and the morality of the free market, nearly all of the Republican candidates made direct pleas to younger voters.

Though the idea of middle-aged men appealing to the youth of America has proved piquant to late teen and twenty-somethings, the message of Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) appears to resonate unusually well.

Part of it is surely style--his boyish smile and ham-it-up personality and dirty sense of humor--but the brunt of McCain's appeal seems to be his message.

When pollsters ask members of so-called "Generation X" what they most want from a president, they invariably answer, "a reformer."

The centerpiece of McCain's platform is campaign finance reform.

He wants to ban soft money contributions, which, he says, grant special interests the power to bankroll political parties and their agendas. Though critics counter that soft money donations are a form of protected political speech, McCain sees them as antithetical to democracy.

The senator from Arizona chains his argument to the spirit of youth.

He argues that young voters are politically disenfranchised from the process because moneyed interests have too much say. This disengagement from the political process fosters civic disengagement as well because, in McCain's view, younger voters don't feel the government is responsive to them at all.

For Jonathan S. Freimann, 23, a student at the Harvard Law School, McCain's views are welcoming.

"John McCain is someone that young Americans really can trust, can trust to be a straight-shooter, and can trust to tell it like it is, and we haven't seen that in a really long time," he says.

Candidates who successfully court the youth vote said that achievement, and not platitudes, helps them to connect.

"To appeal to the youth vote you have to convince them you're willing to change the way government works," said Senator Fred Thompson (R--Tenn) who, in his 1994 run for the Senate, saw young voters turn in out in droves to support his candidacy.

"John McCain is one of the few people who walks the walk," he said.